GARRIOCH: Agent says early draft would help to let prospects know where they're headed

One way or another in the near future, the NHL needs to make a decision on whether or not they’re going to hold the draft in June.

And, if they asked the prospects waiting with bated breath to find out which NHL team is going to select them, they’d be quite happy if the league went ahead with its annual crapshoot before the regular season is completed. Ideally, they’d like to know where they’re going to end up.

Andy Scott, an Ottawa-based lawyer with the Octagon Hockey Group that represents the likes of top prospect winger Tim Stuetzle from Germany along with centre Jan Mysak (Hamilton) and winger Brandon Coe (North Bay), told this newspaper Wednesday morning the players his organization represents would like the virtual draft to go ahead.

Files: Andy Scott of Octagon Hockey.Jean Levac /
Postmedia News

“Surprisingly, they want to get it over with,” Scott said in a telephone interview. “They’d rather have the draft in June and not have all of the anxiety the entire summer of where they’re going to go in the draft. They’d rather get it over with, understand what team owns their rights, and be able to have some communication with that team throughout the summer.

“Perhaps, they can get on their program and get excited about the fall.”

You can understand where the prospects are coming from. Many of the players taken at the top of this draft will have a chance to make the likes of the Detroit Red Wings, Ottawa Senators and Los Angeles Kings next season and since facilities may be able to reopen this summer, that doesn’t rule out the possibility of some form of a development camp in July or August for the selected players.

“The players are looking for peace of mind and they don’t want to have a summer where they’re anxious about a draft,” Scott added. “You’ve got to remember they’ve been looking at June, 2020 for a number of years as they month where they get drafted.

“To put that off, after having envisioned they were going to be drafted at that point, and to have to go a complete summer without knowing after all this buildup is creating some anxiety for guys. Our role is to let them know that in the big scheme of things it’s not that big an issue in terms of the timing of the draft and you just have to make sure that they’re playing it cool.”

The NHL first floated the idea to the general managers of holding a virtual draft in June about three weeks ago. Since the idea was initially met with resistance, deputy commissioner Bill Daly wrote a lengthy eight-page memo to the board of governors in advance of their call on May 4 to outline the reasons why the league wanted the event early and to try to deal with any concerns.

As noted, the two biggest issues are the format of the draft lottery and the conditional trades that have been made involving picks. Those are the largest roadblocks along with the fact many GM’s like to use the draft as a vehicle to move contracts, and those deals would be put on hold if the league hasn’t yet completed its regular season and playoffs.

The sense among agents is the draft will go ahead in June because the league wants it.

“Everybody seems to think there’s going to be some form of a June draft,” Scott said. “I don’t think that’s changed, although, the date has moved back because I think were looking at June 5 and I don’t think they are anymore. It goes back to this hurry up and wait scenario on whether you really want to push to have this draft early or play it cool and have it between the end of the playoffs and the start of the 2020-21 season.

“That could be a number of months from now. If you don’t start the league up again until January, which is a possibility at this stage, you do have some time to get this done. Do you lose out on a little bit of the hype in a time when there’s very little content in the summer months? Yes, you do but if you combine a lottery with a draft in a shortened off-season you’re going to get some good hype leading into 2020-21 if you do a good job with the virtual draft.”

Ideally, Scott would like the league to make a decision because the level of activity has increased.

“I think they need to make a decision soon on whether there’s going to be a draft in June because guys want to know,” said Scott. “There needs to be at least a month of lead time to make sure everybody understands there marching orders. Ever since the memo a week ago, we’ve had an increase in activity from the NHL teams with all of our prospects across the board.

“There’s been more calls for interviews, more calls from scouts and managers with respect to information about our prospects. That’s still with a lot of uncertainty but guys are planning for a June draft. People are going to want to know if this is going to go ahead.”

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